Poker is a popular wagering game played in casinos and other gaming establishments. Many variants of poker have been developed, including without limitation, five-card draw, five-card stud, seven-card stud, MISSISSIPPI STUD™, TEXAS HOLD'EM™, ULTIMATE TEXAS HOLD'EM®, and LET IT RIDE®. Decks of 52 cards or representations of cards are often used in playing these games.
Poker games conventionally use a hierarchy of various hands based on statistical probabilities of obtaining the respective hands. For example, in some poker games that are 5-card games, the following hands are ranked in order, from highest to lowest: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, and high card. The hierarchy of combinations varies with the number of cards in the hand.
Since the number of cards employed in a particular poker game is fixed within certain practical limits, and various poker hands and their relative ranks are and have been well-established for over a century, evolution of the game of poker in terms of meaningful variations is somewhat constrained. However, there is a market for new and more interesting ways to play poker games with easy to understand and entertaining game play.